Friday, January 25, 2013

January Adventures

 January has brought mighty cold temperatures this year.  Its also brought BYU Men's Volleyball games back too.  We have made it to at least one game each weekend since the season started.  We even talked my mom, stepfather, and my sister and her family to come to the biggest game of the year thus far.  It was packed but thankfully the Cougars brought home the win!  Currently they are #1 in the country and we love taking the family to the games.
 Sam has stayed true to form and dances his heart out at each match.  The players join in on occasion and the fans around us cheer him on!  Sam's dancing even earned us seats on the front row one match and a cameo on True Blue!
 Of course we hit Krispy Kreme's on the way home as well.  So far the "Hot" light has been on each time we stop!
January also brought lots of snow and lots of haze.  Joseph's asthma is acting up with all the junk in the air.  I think the kids only got 2 outdoor recess days all this month between the temperature and the air quality.  Ronny took the scouts on the Klondike and came home reporting success as everyone came home with 10 fingers and 10 toes.  I think he said the average temp that night was -6 degrees.  Brrrrrr..........

Joseph's New Friends

With the Christmas money Joseph received this year he decided to try his hand at fish.  We braved the pet store and Joseph chose two beta fish and a tank that could keep them separated.  He loves them.  Unfortunately we have gone through 2 red fish and 1 blue one.  We are down to one and think we have finally figured out what is wrong.  It's too cold.  I keep our house at 68 during the winter trying to keep the utilities down.  We learned the fish like to be much warmer so we'll have to look for a heat source for them.  It sure doesn't help that January this year hasn't seen too many days above freezing.  I'm ready for Spring!

Catch Up On Christmas Season

I am really behind on posting here.  Sorry.  Here are the highlights from December and our Christmas Festivities.


This year we decided to cut our own Christmas Tree.  Ronny went up sometime in November to Soldier Hollow to get a permit.  He waited in line for hours but brought home the "golden ticket/permit".  We along with two other families loaded up one Saturday morning thinking we would only be gone a few hours and that the weather was not so bad.  Little did we know our experience would include digging our van out twice, the SUV of our friends out once, wondering if our van would topple over the side of the cliff, waiting in the van with 7 kids watching Elf while the Dads cut the trees down, and almost 12 hours of adventures; we finally had our tree and were headed home.  On the way home Joseph asked, "Can we do this again next year?"




The kids decided to surprise us Sunday morning by decorating for Christmas themselves.  Ron and I came downstairs to find the tree lights on, the banisters decorated, and the stockings hung.
This is the mess that was left after the decorating frenzy.



I'm not sure why Sam didn't have a picutre infront of the tree but these were so cute I had to add them.

Joseph surprised us with writing a Christmas Newsletter.  Ron and I opted to forgo the letter this year with our busy schedules.  We emailed this out to our family and called it good!  You can certainly see where Joseph's priorities are.....


From the clippings off our tree I decided to try my hand at making Aaron's Christmas wreath.  It turned out well and looked so nice with all the snow at the cemetery.  Hiking through the snow to his headstone made me grateful that we decided to go with the wedge style so we didn't have to hunt for his stone in the snow.
We had my family over for Christmas Eve dinner, of course I forgot to take a picture.  We decided on soup and rolls.  I tried my hand at making homemade noodles.  They were a hit!  Ronny planned a nice devotional around the Christmas Story.  It was a great night and we hope to repeat it next year!
Santa seemed to know just what everyone wanted.  Charley her very own kindle, and the boys (including Ronny) all got remote control helicopters.